Long distance mobility and migration
intentions in Europe
With the accession of ten New Member States to the European
Union, the issue of geographic and labour market mobility has
taken a prominent position on the EU policy agenda. The year
2006 has been officially chosen as the “European Year of
Workers’ Mobility”, which also reflects the policy saliency of the
mobility issue. In this paper we analyse differences and similarities in residential mobility across European countries, with particular interest for long distance mobility. We discuss in turn the
extent of past long distance mobility in Europe and the motives
thereof. Then we discuss the extent of future intended mobility
and what people expect from it. The data used are from the 2005
Eurobarometer Mobility Survey (EB64.1), the most recent Europe-wide survey on mobility and mobility intentions. Data were
collected in the 25 EU countries in September 2005. The survey
includes a representative sample of 24,500 individuals aged 15
years or more (more or less 1,000 by country). The analyses presented here pertain to respondents of 18 years old and above. An
extensive descriptive analysis of the data is provided in Coppin
et al. (2006), on which this paper is based.
Distance of past geographic mobility
According to OECD numbers, the stock of the foreign population in the total population in the European Economic Area has increased from 4.8% in
1991 to 5.7% in 2001 (OECD, 2004, p. 19). The bulk
of foreign citizens living in EU Member States is
from outside the EU. Intra-EU migration, however,
is a rather limited phenomenon. An important part
of the Eurobarometer Mobility Survey is devoted to the distance of
past moves (whether it is within
the town/city, outside the town but
within the region, outside the region but within the country, to another EU country or to a country
outside the EU) and to the motives
and consequences of such moves.
Figure 1 shows the level of past
mobility for the various distances.
Only 18% of the Europeans moved
outside the region in the past, and
the percentage for cross-border
migration is especially low: only
4% ever moved to another country
within the EU and less than 3%
ever moved to another country
outside the EU. This contrasts with
the larger mobility rates found for
short distance moves: 32% of Europeans ever moved within the town
or city in which they live and almost a quarter moved outside the
city border, but remained within
the region in which they reside.
How do these numbers compare
to the USA? Almost a third (32%) of
the US population does not live in the state in
which they were born (source: US Census Bureau,
data from 2000). This is twice as much as regional
mobility in the EU. Obviously distances in the USA
are much larger than within countries of the EU.
Hence we suggest that a better number to compare
to would be to count the people in Europe that either lived in another region or country. Using the
Eurobarometer data, we find that around 22% of
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the EU population has ever lived in another region
or country (Figure 2). On the basis of this number,
the EU-US difference in mobility is lower, but still
Figure 1.
Past mobility by distance of the move (percentages)
substantial. However, one should note that movements within the USA take place within the same
country, language and culture, which is not the
case in the EU. Indeed, EU respondents report that
what worries them most when they think about
moving to another EU country is their “lack of
language skills” or “having to adapt to another culture”. Labour market issues “finding a job for oneself”, however, is also something that worries people when they think about moving to another EU
country.
Intra- and extra-EU mobility or migration, so the
conclusion must be, still is a rather limited phenomenon. The differences in long distance mobility (mobility across regions or border) among EU
countries, however, are striking (Figure 2). Long
distance mobility is relatively high in Nordic countries but low in most of the new Member States and
Italy. Although the gender differences in past long
distance mobility are small, the differences by edu-
Figure 2.
Past long distance (across regions or border) mobility (percentages)
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cational level are substantial: as the educational
level increases, the percentage of people who report long distance moves in the past also increases.
Results show that about 7% of the higher educated
report having made a move within the EU since
they left their parental home, against 4% among the
lower educated. This confirms previous studies according to which it is especially higher educated
workers who are more likely to be mobile on the
international labour market (Salt, 1992).1 During
the 1990s the demand for highly qualified professionals willing to move across borders grew substantially, particularly by multinationals but also in
sectors such as research and development, IT, tourism, and marketing. The globalisation of skills and
competences implies a wider geographical job and
career scope – and consequently employment options – for highly qualified individuals (OECD,
2001). Willingness to move, even over longer distances and between countries, for career reasons is
much more part of the professional culture of
highly educated persons compared to lower educated workers.
Motives for past long distance
mobility
The literature suggests a variety of reasons why
people would move from one country to another.
Migration can be a response to differences in actual
wages, but the decision to migrate can also be
based on the basis of future employment and wage
prospects. Non-wage income (e.g. social security
benefits) and the supply of public facilities is also
expected to play a role in the migration decision.
Furthermore, research has pointed out the importance of demographic events and social networks in
the decision whether to migrate or not. The Eurobarometer Mobility Survey records the reason for the
last long distance move as reported by the respondents. These motives for mobility are presented in
Figure 3. Long distance moves are often labour market related (new job or job transfer: 34%), but a
change of partnership/marital situation is also a
chief motive for moving (18%). Males do report
“new job or job transfer” as the main reason for long
distance mobility far more often than females (44%
compared 27%), females more often indicate to
have made a long distance move to follow their
partner. The latter finding is in line with the existing
Figure 3.
Reasons for long distance mobility (percentages)
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Europeans’ expectations for future
mobility
more – interesting to explore their future expectations about mobility. In the Eurobarometer Mobility
Survey, such intentions are captured by one key
question: “Do you think that in the next five years
you are likely to move: (1) in the same city/town/
village; (2) to another city/town/village but in the
same region; (3) to another region but in the same
country; (4) to another country in the European Union; (5) to another country outside the European
Union; (6) you don’t think you will move”. Although we know that a pro-move intention cannot
be taken as a perfect predictor for future mobility
it is widely acknowledged that such intentions
do, under certain circumstances, have a predictive
value for future behaviour (Gordon and Molho,
1995).
It is interesting to determine Europeans’ geographic
mobility history and its determinants, but it is
equally – and from a policy point of view even
Despite an overall positive view on mobility,2 a
large majority of the respondents (almost 70%) has
no personal moving expectations for the near fu-
literature that suggests that this decision is genderbiased (for a review, see e.g. Jürges, 2005). Roughly
speaking, the most important motives for mobility
are more or less the same across birth cohorts.
Looking at the self-reported effects of migration, the
general conclusion is that when people have moved
across the border, it is for the better: the main positive effects of long distance mobility are an improvement of the housing conditions, of the employment situation of one of the household
members and, related to that, of the household income.
Figure 4.
Proportion of people intending to move to another EU country in the next five years (percentages)
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ture. Regarding the EU view on the need for a
higher mobility of the EU workforce it is important
to note the stronger expectations to move among
younger and higher educated people. But it is
equally important to note that having no intentions
to move is not necessarily reflecting immobility or
a lack of willingness to move: people are rooted
in communities, have invested in their local social
capital, may have children in a crucial life-course
stage, may have a working partner, which may affect the psycho-social cost of moving. This will be
especially true for long distance and cross-border
mobility.
On average 3% of the EU population expects to
move to another EU country within the next five
years. Overall, the expected intra EU mobility in
the new Member States is larger than in the EU-15.
Moreover, our analyses have shown that mobility
intentions in the New Member States have increased substantially over the past few years, probably a consequence of the EU membership (Coppin et al., 2006). This, however, hides large variations within the New Member States. Four of the
new Member States display high levels of mobility
expectations: Latvia, Poland, Lithuania, and Estonia
(Figure 4). Especially the case of Poland is important in this respect: with a population of almost
40 million people, a percentage of about 7% that
expects to move to another EU country is quite
substantial in absolute numbers. The other new
Member States have moderate or low levels of expected mobility. That the potential of migration is
indeed large is also confirmed by a recent Dutch
study (Ecorys, 2006).
With respect to the intrinsic motivations for future
mobility it is found that persons who expect to
move more frequently mention pull factors such as
“discovering a new environment”, “better working
conditions”, and “higher household income”. Males
and younger people more often point at work- or
income-related motives. As far as factors that would
discourage people from moving abroad, the potential loss of social networks (especially for females)
or having to learn a new language (especially for
older people and the low educated) are important
barrier to future mobility. Migration intentions crucially depend on past experience with residential
mobility and the reason thereof (Fouarge and Ester,
2006).
Conclusion
The conclusion is that at present cross-border mobility in Europe is not very high. But can we expect
it to increase in the near future? Not dramatically
and not for all EU-25 countries so the data tell us.
This is likely explained by the fact that moving
across borders involves the loss of social networks
in the country of origin, it also involves the quest
for new employment opportunities, and the learning of new language skills. The European diversity
in past mobility and migration intentions is large.
Also within the New Member States the mobility
variations across countries are substantial. In this
sense, an ‘old-new divide’ in the mobility statistics
is a too simplistic representation of the great diversity in mobility patterns in Europe.
Didier Fouarge
OSA
Peter Ester
Tilburg University
Notes
1. Whether the resulting effect for Member States is a ‘brain
drain’ or a ‘brain gain’ cannot be estimated from the
Eurobarometer Mobility Survey data. For this purpose one
needs reliable information of origin and destination of
migration flows.
2. A large proportion of Europeans think that moving across
regions of countries in the EU is generally speaking a
good thing for individuals (49%; only 12% think it is a
bad thing), the labour market (50%; only 21% think it is
a bad thing) or the European integration (62%; only 11%
think it is a bad thing).
References
Coppin, L., Ester, P., Fasang, A., Fouarge, D., Geerdes, S.,
Schömann, K., van der Hallen, P. and Vandenbrande,
T. (2006, forthcoming), Descriptive report on mobility
in Europe, Dublin: European Foundation.
Ecorys (2006), Evaluatie werknemersverkeer MOE-landen, Rotterdam: Ecorys.
Fouarge, D. and Ester, P. (2006), Determinants of international and regional migration intentions in Europe, Dublin: European Foundation.
OVER.WERK Tijdschrift van het Steunpunt WAV / Uitgeverij Acco
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Gordon, I. and Molho, I. (1995), ‘Duration dependence in
migration behaviour: cumulative inertia versus stochastic change’, Environment and Planning, A 27:
1961-1975.
Jürges, H. (2005), ‘The geographic mobility of dualearner couples: does gender ideology matter?’, DIW
Discussion Papers 474.
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OECD (2001), International mobility of highly-skilled
workers, Paris: OECD.
OECD (2004), Trends in international migration, Paris:
OECD.
Salt, J. (1992), ‘Migration processes among the highly
skilled in Europe’, International Migration Review,
26n 484-505.
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